Sword Art Online - The Spoiler-ridden Catch-All & Discussion Hub

I read somewhere that Odo found that the Nami bust increase was unconscious and that he kept having to "reset" her shirt size. But the "resets" were getting larger over time as well.

Certis wrote:
Jolly Bill wrote:

2) What the hell is with the sudden mis-season reboot? The transition to the second MMO is fine and all, but where the hell did all the fan-service, tentacle rape, incest, and creepy f*cking lip-licking insane dude come from? They are managing to keep hold of the things I liked most about the series, but this divergence into some of the more degrading anime tropes is disturbing.

That's an excellent question. I don't watch a ton of anime, but it seems normal for shows to get more overtly sexual as time goes on. Reminds of me One Piece and Nami's ever-growing bust. Kind of a bummer, but not embarrassing enough to make me stop watching.

Hell, Karla and I watched High School of The Dead all the way though and some of that was heinous to the point of parody. It's probably why we were able to stick with it because it was so over the top and laughable.

I've watched enough to understand that some anime jumps the shark on the sexuality, it was just the sudden shift in episode 15 in particular that disturbed me. Before that point the fan service was fairly rare and discrete, and after that point every other time a girl is talking the frame is only showing from nipple to chin. I don't really mind looking past that as I still love the show, it's just the shift between before episode 15 and after is really jarring.

Edit: Looking back, they had a pretty nice variety of strong female characters in Asuna, Yui, Silica, and Rosalia. Now you have Yui turned into a pocket pixie which is kind of novel except where it dumbs her down (seriously, going from "Human Psychology AI" to "What does it mean to like someone?"), Asuna turned into the princess in the castle, and all the new girls are tropes.

Ok, I'm going to stop now before I talk myself out of liking the series. New series adds flying and magic and faction conflict in good doses, as well as a good real world / MMO world disconnect, so I'll try to take the good with the bad.

Grenn wrote:

I read somewhere that Odo found that the Nami bust increase was unconscious and that he kept having to "reset" her shirt size. But the "resets" were getting larger over time as well.

That's an incredible amount of bullsh*t. Wow. Just own it, animators.

Certis wrote:
Grenn wrote:

I read somewhere that Odo found that the Nami bust increase was unconscious and that he kept having to "reset" her shirt size. But the "resets" were getting larger over time as well.

That's an incredible amount of bullsh*t. Wow. Just own it, animators.

Oh come on, the man has worked extremely long hours for 15 years. He's only had one vaction in that time. I'm sure that'll do things to you...

Jolly Bill wrote:

Looking back, they had a pretty nice variety of strong female characters in Asuna, Yui, Silica, and Rosalia. Now you have Yui turned into a pocket pixie which is kind of novel except where it dumbs her down (seriously, going from "Human Psychology AI" to "What does it mean to like someone?"), Asuna turned into the princess in the castle, and all the new girls are tropes.

I think that this current arc is the only one where this kind of stuff happens, to be honest.

Spoilered for the people that don't want to be spoiled...

Spoiler:

Looking on, it appears that this is the only real "damsel in distress" storyline so far in all the light novels. The next arc covers yet another MMO, where Kirito is dealing with some more fallout from SAO. He meets(you guessed it) yet another girl who's apparently one of the top players in the game, and they both deal with it.

The latest arc actually seems to be a reversal of everything so far, with Asuna working to save Kirito.

thanks cube, that's comforting

So I found SAO #23 a little disappointing... to many things you have to try to read in between scenes. And even then it doesn't all make sense:

Spoiler:

Ok, so we can assume Kirito told Yui about the situation with Suguha before he and Suguha had their tender moment in ALO. That could explain her odd absence in that whole scene, especially given how protective she had been about Kirito and Asuna's relationship previously.

I guess Recon got to the base of the world tree with the other Sylph and Cait Sith, though why he decided to charge into the tree raid with only the three of them knowing that the larger forces of two races where there for that very purpose doesn't make sense...

The sudden appearance of both races was kind of a dues ex moment, even if it was mentioned previously they were equipping for one. Seems they really just rushed right into the city and went straight to the tree, somehow knowing Kirito was already in there.

And then Yui could somehow, mysteriously, and suddenly use the administrator access code card even after saying it couldn't be used without the right console. Seems a bit of a stretch to say the door just happened to be one, especially since it had nowhere to swipe the card, as we had previously seen it properly used.

As much as I've enjoyed the rest of the series, even with its great stretches of logic we've already had to accept, this episode seemed like a low point on its storytelling.

Well I'm glad that the slimy bastard got what was coming to him. It would appear that the series will end at ep 25 after all :(.

I'm sure we'll see a second season at this point. The question will be, how many arcs will it cover? Just one or will it dip into the fourth?

Eldon_of_Azure wrote:

Well I'm glad that the slimy bastard got what was coming to him. It would appear that the series will end at ep 25 after all :(.

I would say that the slimy bastard got off easy and that it should have lasted much longer. Then again Kirito stone killed a helpless guy; completely destroying his brain by overloading it with pain bio-feedback. I don't even think SAO had the pain threshold completely turned off, it pretty much killed you when you lose all your HP by shutting down your brain and not from sensory overload.

If there is anything left of the slimy bastard that's still breathing, he's pretty much a vegetable now with his brain matter leaking from his eyeballs.

Eldon_of_Azure wrote:

Well I'm glad that the slimy bastard got what was coming to him. It would appear that the series will end at ep 25 after all :(.

I wonder what will happen to him? He said below pain threshold 3 it affects your body. When he cut him in half, I thought it would show him crippled next episode but then he stabbed him in the head!

Also, I hope they don't forget those 300 other SAO people!

Falchion wrote:

If there is anything left of the slimy bastard that's still breathing, he's pretty much a vegetable now with his brain matter leaking from his eyeballs.

I'm so happy about this for whatever selfish/morbid reasons. They really pushed the boundaries making that creepy f**k of a character.

Spoiler:

I'm assuming there will actually be one more episode where Kirito and Asuna finally meet in the real world. From there, they'll make another story arc in the next seeded world. There is no way that Kirito and Asuna will give up their daughter.

I don't necessarily think he's dead, but he's got a headache this big. *holds out one hand*

Seriously, that guy was the creepiest of creepers. I'd really like to see some real world repercussions. Not just a mention of him arrested. I'd like to see SWAT busting down his door and taking all the scientists involved with excessive force and extreme prejudice.

Episode 25 was just darn cute. They gave some very nice resolution to everything. I hope they continue to make more. They have a nice launch pad to do more episodes if they want to.

They'd be insane not to. Though, if it's going to continue with this 2 arc/25 episode format, it might be a while, because the 4th arc still hasn't finished in the light novels.

It looks like there's a bunch of side stories they can do in the meantime, though.

The world would make it so easy to do any side story you could imagine. Unlike most animes, I think side stories and tangents could be really cool and not just filler. Of course, you'd have to have some good writing going on.

Ok, I'll settle for him getting beat down by a teenager. I really liked it. What a great series. Almost made me reinstall WoW.

Yeah, that was great ending. I hope we see more down the road.

Not sure how I feel about blue-haired Asuna though...

Mantid wrote:

Not sure how I feel about blue-haired Asuna though... :?

Ya know, I kind of liked it. Even though she was fairly mature/motherly before that, I feel like the change to her avatar sort of physically signified the change in her maturity and the maturity of her and Kirito's relationship. Also, the interaction between her and Kirito's sister showed just how mature she has become.

I dunno, I could be totally wrong.

Great, thanks tuffalo. Now I see Asuna as an old lady with blue-tinited hair. :p

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Mantid wrote:

Not sure how I feel about blue-haired Asuna though... :?

Ya know, I kind of liked it. Even though she was fairly mature/motherly before that, I feel like the change to her avatar sort of physically signified the change in her maturity and the maturity of her and Kirito's relationship. Also, the interaction between her and Kirito's sister showed just how mature she has become.

I dunno, I could be totally wrong. :)

I liked it too, the AFO Avatar that she had was forced on her by the pervy bastard, so it's no big surprise that she would want to create something of her own and that it not look too much like her in Real Life since she was complaining a little bit about how everyone at school knows it's her because she looks the same and had the same name in SAO (the former being forced on everyone anyway).

Lastly, I took it to be a call back: Looking at the blue coloring, clothing style and wing shape, I think her AFO avatar is an Udine. Kirito had used the idea of a Spriggan/Udine alliance as a bluff to throw off the Salamander attack.

I totally love the idea of opening up the SEED base code to allow anyone with the right hardware to run their own Full-Dive VMMO and theme it to their preference - that's the dream situation I wish could happen in our real world since I'm a fan of the Open Source ideals, MMOs and VR tech. Even more so then the "One VMMO for all" scenario as seen in the book "Ready Player One". There was hope and hints that this is what Second Life could have been but things didn't really go that way, in spite of Open Sim.

So many story seeds (pun intended):

Spoiler:

- Kirito has quite the harem in real life too. Lisa/Rika has the hots for him carried over from SAO. But it seems that she's on good terms with Asuna as when they were in SAO. So what happens when the one month "ceasefire" ends?

- Leafa/Sugu is still heartbroken and while Asuna is being kind to her and Kirito is trying to include her in things, I think she will eventually strike out on her own once the compatibility issues from moving between SEED worlds is fixed. Recon will follow her. She will ignore him. She might get in trouble. Kirito and Asuna will come to her aid.
In Real Life, I expect her to clash with Rika, since she believes that's she's just protecting Kirito and Asuna when really she's just weeding out competition.

-Silica/Keiko saw a shadow flash of her dragon pet from SAO, in the Real World. VMMO players, especially former SAO players, may still have residue effects from their game worlds affecting them while awake.

-Which brings up the too tidy summary of the 300 SAO players that was experimented on. No memory and no neurological side effects? Yeah I call b*llsh!t on that one.

-Asuna's father still has alot of resources and whatever new hobby he picks up might get Asuna involved as well.

-Thinker-san is working for a news portal for VMMOs; he would be a good source for story ideas to jump off from.

-Kayaba uploaded his conscious? Yeah, he's in the base code of every SEED world now. Have them all link back together to form a singular AI entity having almost near Omniscience throughout the Internet? That could have been his ultimate goal all along.

As a whole, I have to say SAO is my favorite Anime of the year. Such a great concept handled somewhat realistically by someone who actually knows MMO culture and the people that play them. Great characters and a great love story that's not played for too much overblown drama and angst and made tragic. My only issues are the weak 2nd arc where there was a little too much fanservice, pervy bastard and, while sweet, slightly skeevey big brother syndrome.

Ok, Jumping back into Guild Wars 2 now.

Yeah that was a nice ending and I definitely hope another season is made. Also watching that bastard get what's coming to him was way too satisfying. Also didn't even recognize it was Asuna with the blue hair at first...
So how long do I have to live before I can play something like this?

Yup, I didn't realize it was Asuna in blue until this thread prompted me to go back and take a second look. This show succeeded (primarily in the first arc) because it was carefully executed on a number of levels. As much as I might want to see more, I really hope they take the time to make any followup a worthy successor.

master0 wrote:

So how long do I have to live before I can play something like this?

Japan gets an SAO game on PSP this March.... close enough, right?

psoplayer wrote:

Yup, I didn't realize it was Asuna in blue until this thread prompted me to go back and take a second look. This show succeeded (primarily in the first arc) because it was carefully executed on a number of levels. As much as I might want to see more, I really hope they take the time to make any followup a worthy successor.

master0 wrote:

So how long do I have to live before I can play something like this?

Japan gets an SAO game on PSP this March.... close enough, right?

No and no. Although if any show could justify a spinoff game it's this one. Just don't make it as bad as .hack. 10 hours of gameplay streched across three games that took 200 hours. And then they released three more...

Indeed. I really wanted to like the .hack games, but the first one put me to sleep every time I tried to play it. The dungeon crawling was also just similar enough to PSO (which I was playing a lot of at the time) to make the mild shortcomings in the combat design and controls really frustrating. Hey, at least they came with those neat OAVs.

I feel like that they kinda pushed away the issues that Kirito had with his sister. Nothing was resolved and she looked still lonely at the end despite everyone joining in at the end.

JohnKillo wrote:

I feel like that they kinda pushed away the issues that Kirito had with his sister. Nothing was resolved and she looked still lonely at the end despite everyone joining in at the end.

That's kind of the problem with unrequited love when the subject is someone close and/or see on a regular basis and is also attached and doesn't love you in That way back (Cousin in her case). She is really the only one that can lift herself out of it. At least it's out in the open.
Kirito doesn't want to push her away or hurt her even more, so he accepts that she has feelings for him, but still treats her the same way as before and doesn't alienate her even though he may feel alittle uncomfortable deep down.

Likewise, Asuna is understanding and doesn't treat her different either nor mind her presence. She and Kirito also don't try to purposefully act different with each other when she is around as that can come across as faking things for her benefit, which would only piss her off if she catches on. On the other hand they would be mindful not to show too much public displays of affection, which thankfully their culture helps as that's usually frowned on anyways.

That's why I wish if we get a next series, it will show Sugu having decided to strike out on her on own to find herself again as that's how she will resolve those issues and come to terms with it.

Just finished the first season (I assume) on Netflix, where they just beat the boss and the game erased itself. Really, really enjoyed it.

Wondering whether I should stop there or keep on going. Any spoiler-free suggestions?

No. Stop now.

If you like tentacle rape, who doesn't, and dumb stories keep going. Nothing about the second season made any sense.